Thursday, June 14, 2012

Are you Vlad?

Just a few years ago, Romania was somewhere at the edge of the board games world, having a handful of players, two-three hobby stores and the newest and coolest games were getting there with an average delay of six months. But this is over now, things are changing for the better and quite fast.

If last year we - NSKN - were proud of stating that we were the first and only Romanian board games publisher, today things look different once again. The Romanian board games market has just become richer with a new game called I am Vlad from Real Wallachian Games.

After our friends or fans saw the trailer of I am Vlad, they started asking what will we do about it. I had troubles digesting the question, not really understanding why should we do something about it. Later on, I got the point. When you're the first on the market (for the sake of argument, let's assume we were the first on the market), you'd normally feel threatened by newcomers and see them as competition. I must confess I was temped to fall into this trap at first. Then, after some cold judgement, this is where we stand.

First of all, we all love board games. This is how we started and this is who we are. I personally paid a lot of attention to I am Vlad and I must say the game looks awesome, it features one of the best graphic designs I have ever seen and, from what I've heard, it also plays great. I saw the fantastic plastic miniatures and I want even more to try this game out. I personally believe that
NSKN Legendary Games and Real Wallachian Games are not competitors fighting for the same clients, but both publishers are putting Romania on the map of the hobby world. I am expecting more to follow and if this happens, in a few years the Romanian market will probably rise and be at the same level as the Czech market or the Polish one.

I've been asked to compare Warriors & Traders with I am Vlad. I obviously cannot do that, not having played the latter and it would not be even fair to do so. What I can say is that I will for sure add I am Vlad to my collections and I wish that Real Wallachian Games will fully succeed on the board games market.